In ski races, such as slalom race and giant slalom race, the athlete skis zigzag between upright poles spaced apart on the ground to compete for time. To shorten the time, the athlete must glide on skis in a straight line to the greatest extent possible. This inevitably involves the likelihood that the athlete will collide with the pole. Since the athlete in this case glides in a forwardly inclined posture with his forehead positioned most forward, the forehead portion is most likely to collide with the pole. In recent years, the poles are supported upright by a spring and produce very great impact on collision.
On the other hand, the athlete wears goggles, which are usually provided with no protective means against collisions.
More specifically the goggles have a frame surrounding a lens for holding the lens and including an upper frame portion, opposite side frame portions and a lower frame portion which are made of a relatively soft synthetic resin as an integral piece. Conventionally, these portions are not provided with any protector or the like. For the reason given above, the upper frame portion of the frame is very likely to strike against the pole during races, but the conventional goggles are not provided with any means against a collision with the pole as stated above, so that the collision easily bends or deforms the frame, possibly permitting the resulting impact to act on the lens to break the lens.
Further the impact, if great, strongly acts on the forehead of the athlete to cause an injury. Even if the impact is small and does not break the lens, the goggles fitted to the face of the athlete will be improperly displaced by the deformation of the frame to entail the problem of causing trouble to the subsequent gliding.